Reading Finland was a priority project of the Finnish National Board of Education implemented in 2001-2004. The objectives of the project were to improve the reading and writing skills of pupils in basic and general upper secondary education and to increase their knowledge of literature. The responsibility for reaching these objectives is considered to fall on the entire school, all subjects and every teacher.
Although the results of the PISA 2000 study showed in spring 2001 that the reading skills among Finnish youth are easily the best in the OECD countries, about a fifth of the pupils perform alarmingly inadequately in relation to nationally set objectives according to national evaluations of mother tongue skills. There are significant individual discrepancies, boys perform worse than girls especially in their knowledge of Finnish, and it seems that pupils especially have problems in deductive and critical reading. In an information based society like Finland, there is a need for even better and more versatile reading skills. Good reading skills also prevent social exclusion and are the most significant factor in academic success.
Sixty-nine municipalities, six teacher training schools and one state run educational institution participated in this voluntary development project. The opening seminar of the development network was held in May. About 250 participants were present. They represented 6 operational branches:
- Curricular development in all subjects to promote reading and writing skills and to increase the knowledge of literature
- Improving school libraries and promoting collaboration between schools and municipal libraries
- Improving reading and writing skills as a collaborative effort between basic education and special needs education
- Reading comprehension, especially the improvement of deductive and critical reading strategies in all subjects
- Writing different genres of texts and learning through writing in all subjects
- Improving pedagogical methods for educating boys in the areas specified in the project
Reading Finland – Changes Desired
- to raise the skills and knowledge of the weakest performing quarter
- to develop methodologies to increase reading among boys
- to improve methods for teaching writing skills
- to have the pupils read more, both at school and in their leisure time
- to develop school libraries, and to increase collaboration between schools and municipal libraries
- to increase school visits of authors
- to increase cross-curricular activity in the areas specified in the project
- to improve deductive reading skills
- to bring all the teachers together to improve reading comprehension and writing skills
- to improve the methodological skills of primary teachers
- the familiarise the teachers better with literature aimed at children and young people
- to strengthen the cooperation between homes and schools to support reading and writing skills
- to develop the teaching of Finnish as a second language and the teaching of their mother tongue to immigrant children